For the list of all release notes click here.
The following list will give a quick overview about the newest improvements that contentACCESS version 6.2 brings to you:
SharePoint archive
✓ Shortcutting
SharePoint got a lot of feature updates in the past several years to be a great DMS and CMS system. Users have widely adopted SharePoint as a document storage platform to facilitate seamless collaboration.
It’s important to note that SharePoint Online charges for additional storage, and large SharePoint environments can significantly impact costs. Therefore, optimizing space utilization is crucial to avoid unnecessary expenses.
To save space on SharePoint, contentACCESS now provides two methods: replacing files with small 1-5kB shortcuts or removing old file versions. Both methods are controlled by administrator-defined rules.
The first method involves replacing files and version with highly customizable tiny shortcuts that serve as placeholders. By opening a shortcut, the user will have several options directly accessible, like previewing the file in contentACCESS preview, downloading the original file from contentACCESS archive, or restoring the file. These options are customizable by the administrator.
The second method focuses on removing outdated file versions only. SharePoint allows versioning of files, but multiple versions can occupy significant space. By selectively removing older versions that are no longer necessary, storage capacity can be optimized while the file is still directly accessible from SharePoint. The old version can be reached through contentACCESS client apps.
Implementing these strategies can help efficiently manage space on SharePoint, potentially reducing storage costs by 60%.
✓ Automated site provisioning
Automated SharePoint site collection provisioning is a rule-based engine that enhances the management of site collections within contentACCESS. It operates by identifying site collections in SharePoint based on specified rules and subsequently assigning them to virtual groups in contentACCESS. These virtual groups play a crucial role in streamlining the archiving processes.
The rule-based engine works by evaluating predefined criteria or conditions, such as metadata, naming conventions, size, or other specified attributes of site collections. Once a match is found, the engine automatically assigns the corresponding site collection to a virtual group within contentACCESS. This grouping allows for easier management and enables administrators to efficiently organize and categorize site collections based on their specific requirements or policies.
By leveraging virtual groups, administrators gain granular control over archiving processes. They can define archiving settings, retention policies, access permissions, and other relevant configurations at the group level. This approach simplifies the management of archiving tasks for site collections within contentACCESS, ensuring consistent and centralized control over the archiving process.
Overall, the automated SharePoint site collection provisioning engine, driven by rule-based criteria and virtual groups in contentACCESS, empowers administrators to efficiently manage and organize the archiving of site collections. This automated approach reduces manual effort, improves consistency, and enhances overall archiving performance and control.
✓ Address book
We are introducing an Address book for SharePoint archive. The address book in contentACCESS SharePoint archive serves as a centralized repository of the provisioned SharePoint site collections, virtual groups associated with site collections, OneDrives, and OneDrive groups.
By leveraging the SharePoint archive address book, administrators gain a unified view of their provisioned data and can manage various settings or can trigger various actions. This enables simplified administration, and better visibility into SharePoint resources within the contentACCESS environment.
Teams archive
✓ Shortcutting SharePoint data
Microsoft Teams is a great collaboration platform, which uses SharePoint as a document storage in the background. This means each stored file in Teams is derived from the allowed SharePoint storage for the Microsoft 365 tenant.
It’s important to note that SharePoint Online charges for additional storage, and large SharePoint environments can significantly impact costs. Therefore, optimizing space utilization is crucial to avoid unnecessary expenses.
As a solution, we have introduced the same SharePoint offloading for Teams as we have implemented for the SharePoint archive. This provides two methods: replacing files with highly customizable small 1-5kB shortcuts or removing old file versions. Both methods are controlled by administrator-defined rules.
Implementing these strategies can help efficiently manage space on SharePoint, potentially reducing storage costs by 60%.
Common
✓ Performance and stability fixes
Improvements were made to make the system faster and more stable, so your contentACCESS experience is now even better than it was before.
Update from older versions
✓ Update path: The update is supported by contentACCESS version 3.1 and later. Older versions must first be updated to contentACCESS 3.1 and after that they can be updated to the latest version.
If the update has been done for an earlier version than 3.3, after the update some of the new features must be configured manually.
One of these features is the Task runner, which requires resource storage where the export files will be stored. This storage must be configured in System -> System -> Resource storage settings. This store must be accessible by all contentACCESS nodes inside a cluster, so it is highly recommended to use a network share.
✓ TLS 1.1 and older is disabled: In contentACCESS 6.1 and later the TLS versions older than 1.2 are disabled for security reasons
✓ Modern authentication for Email archive needs more permissions: we have switched from the deprecated Remote PowerShell to a REST based management API, which requires some more permissions on the configured Azure AD application
✓ Search V2 requires .NET Core: In 6.0 we have introduced the next version of search. The new search components targets .NET Core 6, which will be installed automatically by the search server setup.
✓ Teams and Teams chat job filter must be adjusted: In 5.4 we have fully redesigned the filtering capabilities in all Teams and Teams Chat jobs. Your existing Teams and Teams Chat jobs settings must be verified and adjusted after the update from 5.3 and earlier.
✓ Application pool identities changed: To increase the security, all application pools of contentACCESS are using the isolated IIS App Pool Identity. This requires a switch to the server-side rendering in contentACCESS Portal for email archive.
✓ .NET Framework support: From the 5.0 version, the minimum required .NET version for all applications was increased from 4.5.2 to 4.8.
✓ Mail app activation: As a result of redesigning the Mail app activation method in contentACCESS Email Archive, new permissions: “Org Marketplace Apps” and “User Options”, are needed to make the super user work correctly.
✓ Outlook forms: If the update has been done from an earlier version than 3.4, because of some internal changes in the email archive shortcut format, the Outlook forms must be updated to the latest version to maintain the correct functionality. For contentACCESS 3.8, the Outlook forms must be also republished due to the authentication changes.
✓ Remote file archiving: While updating from contentACCESS 3.6, existing remote agent definitions will be not working, since some of the database structures have been moved from the file system archive database to the tenant database.
✓ SQL server support: The minimum required SQL version was increased from MS SQL 2008 to MS SQL 2012.
✓ Redesigned filtering: The old filtering was converted to a new format. Therefore, after the update from 3.7 or earlier, we recommend the checking of all your job filtering settings.
Documentation
Please check the updated documentation and manuals.
contentACCESS and client apps user manuals
